Stinner Frameworks‘ backlog had grown by 8x over a three month period, so it was time to expand. So they recently moved into new production space in Santa Barbara, CA, and he’s no longer a one man show in the garage. Aaron Stinner still does all the welding, but they’ve added a painter (bringing it in house, which improves lead times and gives them more control), a fabricator and an engineer that helps with admin and operations. That’s five full time people all total, a big jump that indicates he’s doing something right.
Road and cyclocross are the bread and butter, but he also builds mountain bikes. Everything’s full custom, so he can do, touring and and gravel bikes, too, and was showing one off with a prototype ENVE gravel bike fork and fender combo…
Having the paint in house lets them get creative without the delays caused by having to pack and ship the frame offsite.
This blue one has All-City’s latest sliding disc brake dropout system, which is not really something they offer on customer builds, but this was for a shop owner that knew some folks to make it happen. They can use a similar item from Paragon, though.
It’s designed for singlespeed bikes only, so there’s no concession on the driveside for adding a derailleur hanger.
Going into NAHBS, we had a hunch ENVE might hide a few Easter Eggs on some show bikes, as they’ve done many times before (that was the first time we saw their rigid MTB fork). We also had a hunch they simply must be working on a thru axle fork for cyclocross, and this one gets pretty close.
This one’s a show prototype only, the real fork won’t be launched for a few months, but it’s clear it’s ENVE’s first road-oriented fork with a thru axle…and it’s a 12mm thru axle at that. No other specs are available yet.
The fender snaps into place by hooking into grooves on the end of the fork and indents on the insides of the legs. There’s no hardware, and it’s easily removable without any tools. Aaaahhh, carbon.
ENVE’s marketing director told us it’s pretty much ready to go, they just have to get it through production and the rest of the processes that need to happen. Translation, it won’t be ready by Sea Otter this April, so probably summer. We also spoke with ENVE’s sales manager who said they’ve settled on the 12mm axle standard for road, so it only makes sense that one of their hub suppliers (Chris King? DT Swiss?) will start offering that option soon, too.
